New Parallel and Flat Area 3D Machining Strategies

Much improved Parallel and Flat Area 3D machining strategies for cutting solid models and surfaces provide reduced cutting time, improved surface finish and improved tool life.

Automatic exclusion of flat areas on parts allowing for flat rather than ball ended cutters to be used.

Steep and shallow areas of parts detected allowing for different strategies to be adopted, such as a smaller tool step-over in a steeper gradient to that used in a shallow area.

Options to always down or up mill, and loop or round sharp external corners.

New Geometry Query Manager

The Geometry Query Manager allows for a set of rules to be defined and applied to the current ALPHACAM drawing. Based on these rules, geometries are moved onto specifically named user layers. Machining Styles can then be applied to these layers automating the generation of tool paths. AutoStyles and CAD to CAM (add-in) have also been updated to take advantage of this new functionality, proving further automation improvements.

Adaptive Feed Rate Support for Z Contour Roughing

This new feature in Z Contour Roughing provides the ability to automatically adjust the tool’s feed rate throughout the tool path, taking into account the effective width of cut. While machining a full width of cut, the feed rate can be automatically reduced to lessen the tool load. Conversely, while machining a narrower width of cut, the feed rate can be automatically increased to reduce machining time, without overloading the tool.

New Automatic Work Plane Ordering

This new Order Work Planes command can be used to automatically optimize the order of geometries and tool paths. The shortest path around a 4 or 5-axis part is automatically calculated based on the CNC machine configuration. This eliminates the time consuming process of manual ordering as well as reduces the rapid travel distances, resulting in faster machining time.

New Extract Solid Edge for Sawing

This new Edge for Sawing command, added to Feature Extraction, creates special geometry from a selected solid model planar face. The resulting geometry is automatically configured for Auto-Z sawing.

Editable Spline/Polyline Tool Paths

Tool paths created via Cut Spline/Polyline, including simultaneous 5-axis operations, can now be modified and updated via the Project Manager.

Automatic 3D Lead-In/Out Support for Cut Spline/Polyline

3D Lead-In/Out moves can now be applied automatically during the Cut Spline/Polyline process.